Page 79 of Highland Sword
Baker’s eyes widened at her words. “He’d never come.” He glanced around him at the meadow and the surrounding forest. “It’s not safe here.”
“Exactly right. And yet he can send you. Look around you. You’re on Mackintosh land. Do you know what the laird’s men would do to a dog like you? Especially after I tell them Sir Rupert sent you?” She paused, letting her words sink in.
He edged closer to his horse.
“They’d string you up from the castle walls at Dalmigavie. You’d end up as food for their pigs. How does it feel to be expendable?”
“Not good.” He was paler than when first she arrived. “But Sir Rupert won’t be happy, miss. I had my instructions. I wrote the letter. You were to pay. And then he’d tell me what to do next. Maybe if you come back with me?”
“A helpless maiden like me?” she scoffed. “It’d hardly be safe for me, would it?”
He at least had the decency to shake his head. “Nay, miss.”
“He’s a villain. You know it. I know it. But we both know that neither you nor I can beat him.”
“True, miss.”
Morrigan watched him glance nervously at the road again. She guessed Burney wasn’t the only one Baker was afraid of. He could already feel the Mackintosh rope around his neck.
“Very well, Baker. This is what I want you to do. Go back to Sir Rupert and give him my regards. Tell him I have no money. At the same time, I want no bad blood between us. And I want my father’s letter.”
Baker shook his head. “I’m telling you, miss, he won’t be happy. Not happy at all. This won’t come out well, not for you nor me. Sir Rupert likes to have his plans followed, just as he lays them out.”
Morrigan wondered how many entrapment schemes Baker had been involved in over the years. According to Wemys, the man had successfully led a half-dozen unsuspecting reform groups into snares of Sir Rupert’s design. He seemed too simple. Perhaps that was his charm, though. That and following Sir Rupert’s instructions precisely.
“The world is not a happy place. Is it, Baker?” Morrigan reached in her pocket and took out a letter. She held it out to him. “This will make him feel much better.”
His face clouded over with suspicion, and he squirmed. “Is this for me?”
“It’s for Sir Rupert. For him only.”
Morrigan waited until the lackey mustered enough courage to take the letter from her hand. He retreated quickly.
“What’s inside will prove my value and worth. Itconveys to him my willingness to cooperate in exchange for my father’s note. Trust me, he’ll be satisfied.”
Morrigan didn’t wait for a response. She turned her horse and started back to Dalmigavie.
In her letter to Burney, she was providing him with valuable information—the location in Maggot Green of a warehouse containing a stockpile of weapons that disappeared from a British shipment about a year ago.
As Cinaed and Niall always reminded her, sometimes you had to lose a small battle to win the war.
CHAPTER27
AIDAN
A letter from Morrigan had been waiting for him when he returned to Edinburgh from London. Her tone had been cordial. She’d found a well-read volume in the library that he needed to read, study, and commit to memory on his return to Dalmigavie. The title wasThe Fault Was All His Own. In A Series Of Letters. By A Lady.In her postscript she stated her absolute faith in Sebastian’s recuperative abilities.
Winter had the Highlands firmly in its grip when Aidan and Sebastian returned to Dalmigavie. As the two men approached the castle the day before Hogmanay, a heavy snow blanketed the village. Regardless of the weather, Aidan’s heart warmed at the thought that Morrigan was safe here within these walls.
Before coming to the mountains above Inverness, he and his brother had stopped at Carrie House for Christmas. For the first time since the war, Aidan had found himself looking out at his estate not as a reminder of the loved ones he’d lost. Instead, he’d conjured a future. A home wherehe and his wife could spend some time between his duties in the courtroom and possibly in Parliament.
Still, as he gazed across the snow-covered fields and moors, he couldn’t wait to show Carrie House to Morrigan. Perhaps in the spring, when the fields were green with barley and the meadows were spattered with the purple of the thrift flower and the white blossoms of the whitlow grass. And everywhere, the air would be filled with the fragrance of the gorse.
Dismounting at the keep, he told himself he needed to meet with Cinaed before he saw Morrigan.
Cinaed and Niall and Searc and the laird gathered to greet him in the laird’s study. Lachlan did not look well. He was growing frailer. Even with a cane, he could barely walk without assistance, and a profound weariness was evident in his drawn features. But regardless of his physical decline, his mind appeared to be as sharp as ever.
Aidan briefly explained the queen’s request and the arrangements he’d made with the Duke of Clarence.
